If you go to Tunica, Miss., a little city just southwest of Memphis, you can take a tour of all the fabulous improvements that have been made with tax money generated from its 10 casinos.

There's the arena and expo center, which draws more than 200,000 visitors each year.

There's the airport and county library. There's a recreation center, a museum and an aquarium.

There's a lot of brick-and-mortar born from dice and chips -- a lot of benefit for residents and a triumph of government leveraging private investment for the greater good of a community.

And then there's Detroit.

The city has had casinos downtown for more than a decade, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into tax coffers.

And what does Detroit have to show for all that money?

Nothing. Not an arena or a museum or even a park. Not a school or an infrastructure project or a community center, the things you find in smaller towns with revenue-generating casinos, such as Tunica and, in Michigan, Sault Ste. Marie.

No, in Detroit, casino money pays for general fund expenses, essentially covering basic needs for which other sources of money -- income and property taxes and state revenue sharing -- are no longer enough. In Detroit, casino money is not an extra but an essential, helping to keep the city solvent, keep municipal paychecks from bouncing, keep the garbage trucks rolling and keep the power flowing to the streetlights that still work.

And that makes worse the impact of the decline in gambling revenues that must be expected because of the casinos opening soon in nearby Toledo and Cleveland. They will draw Ohio gamblers who had been coming to Detroit, reducing the gaming activity in the city and exacerbating Detroit's day-to-day financial problems.

So while communities such as Tunica and Sault Ste. Marie can show you tangible pluses from their casinos, Detroit can't show you anything new and different -- other than the casinos and their hotels -- about the city since gambling began. You can see instead a record of poor planning and even worse management -- by both the city and the state -- that has kept casinos from fulfilling their promise of making Detroit a better place.

It's a sordid story, all too familiar to Detroiters, of missed opportunity caused by lack of vision, bad economic policy and a failure to adapt.

Tiny Tunica, an old cotton town with far less significant history than Detroit, has come way up in the world thanks to the public fruits of its casinos. Tunica is growing, building and thriving.

By comparison, Detroit has crapped out.

Without question, one of the goals of the current efforts to restructure Detroit government, instill fiscal discipline and improve service delivery ought to be stabilizing city finances to the point where casino revenues are not essential dollars but rather are available to subsidize improvements for city residents. This ought to be extra money, to enhance life in Detroit, not preserve it.

More harm than good

It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.

Back in the late 1990s, as then-mayor Dennis Archer pivoted to embrace casinos and then-Gov. John Engler got on board, the idea was to use gambling as a catalyst to help revitalize the city.

With its casino riches, Detroit would hire more police officers, raise police pay and fund programs to improve the quality of life in its neighborhoods. Archer promised that casinos would also provide $73 million for minority and female-owned businesses.

He also proposed a gaming district on the east riverfront that would boast three casinos and hotels, produce important spinoff development, and generate tax revenue that would give the city money for public projects.

But as the casino plans unfolded, almost none of those benefits materialized.

For starters, Archer's riverfront concept was thwarted by opposition from businesses and residents along the river. But he already had moved to clear out the area and in the process killed a viable entertainment district -- including bars and restaurants with deep history in the area and steady customers.

So, before a single casino had opened in Detroit, gaming already had done the city more damage than good.

Broken promises

The anticipated tax revenue also became less beneficial, due to a combination of missteps in both City Hall and the State Capitol.

At about the same time the casinos were set to open, Engler proposed an aggressive growth strategy for Detroit. With the city's high income taxes seen as a disincentive for both residential and commercial investment; Engler suggested a deal under which Detroit would lower its tax rate and be guaranteed a certain amount of statutory revenue sharing (about $333 million a year) to make up for any lost revenue.

The theory was that the lower rate would grow the tax base, and revenues would ultimately increase.

Archer and the Legislature agreed.

But soon after, the state's revenues began declining as the Great Recession hit Michigan first and worst, and the Legislature and Engler's successor, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, had to back away from the revenue sharing guarantee. By 2004, the city's revenue sharing had dropped to about $286 million; for 2011, it was $240 million.

In addition, the decade from 2000 to 2010 was disastrous for Detroit's population. It dropped by nearly a quarter of a million people, while income tax revenues fell by nearly $100 million between 2002-11.

Casino revenue grew over that time, from about $50 million annually when the casinos first opened to $177 million in 2011. But the money was patching losses in other areas.

Today, casino revenue is only slightly more than the city's operating deficit; each year, it essentially holds the city back from unsustainable levels of overspending.

And the extras it was supposed to pay for? Not a one ever happened.

Make it added money

There's no time now for the city's new financial advisory board and program manager (all selected with heavy state influence and oversight) to focus on assigning fault for the city's squandering of casino revenues. Instead, everyone needs to concentrate on ways to put that money to more effective use.

If it's added money, not needed for general operating, it could help address long-term issues such as the city's backlogged infrastructure needs, or it could seed a defined contribution retirement plan for city employees or a VEBA to manage retiree health care.

But key to any of that is right-sizing Detroit's spending to match its other revenues -- or boosting those other revenues, such as income and property taxes.

Think of the massive cost overruns at the city's Department of Transportation, expected to run north of $60 million this year. Reining in that spending, even by half, could make up the estimated $30 million casino revenues are expected to drop by 2015.

Or think of the estimated $150 million annually the city fails to collect in income tax from residents who live in Detroit but work outside the city. That alone could free up nearly all of the yearly casino revenue for things other than operating expenses.

Detroit shouldn't have to look longingly to Tunica, Miss., for examples of the power of casino money to improve its quality of life. The unmet promise can still come true here. But the city's record so far makes the odds seem pretty long.

Stephen Henderson is editorial page editor for the Free Press and the host of "American Black Journal," which airs at 1 p.m. on Sundays on Detroit Public Television. Contact him: 313-222-6659 or shenderson600@freepress.com .